


5 Reasons Ianto Jones Is NOT Jealous of the Doctor

by lakehymn



Category: Torchwood
Genre: 5 Things, Jealousy, List Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lakehymn/pseuds/lakehymn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He and Jack are a perfect match, it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Reasons Ianto Jones Is NOT Jealous of the Doctor

**i. He lost one of his hands.**

Jack’s had that hand in a jar sitting on his desk ever since Ianto joined Torchwood Three. It’s never seemed out of place with everything else they have lying around (Torchwood Three is much more lax about what happens to alien technology than Torchwood One was, Ianto notices), but sometimes, when Jack thinks no one is around, he _strokes_ it. Ianto never asks, and it’s not as if he really cares, anyway.

But, after the incident with Carys, he does ask.

Most nights, it’s just Ianto and Jack at the Hub. The others go home, go back to their ordinary lives, and Ianto stays and picks up after them while Jack finishes going through paperwork, or whatever it is that he does. Jack often tells him to go home, live a normal life like the rest. Ianto always smiles and says that he will when they’ve learnt to pick up after themselves. Jack laughs, but Ianto can tell he’s worried about how late he works. Hopefully, Ianto thinks, Jack won’t ever find out the real reason why he stays so late every night.

That particular night, the night after the Carys incident, Ianto is picking up a coffee cup that someone left on their desk when he nonchalantly asks, “Whose is it, sir?”

Jack looks up from whatever he’s doing. “Uh, Owen’s, I think. Why?”

“No,” Ianto corrects. “The hand.” He makes a vague gesture in its general direction. “Whose is it?”

Jack pauses, then smiles bitterly, and it’s as if he isn’t looking at Ianto at all, isn’t really talking to him, when he says, “The Doctor’s. _My_ Doctor’s.”

It isn’t the first time Ianto’s heard Jack mention ‘the Doctor’, but it’s the first time Jack’s said anything to him personally. Ianto doesn’t ask anything else.

 

 **ii. There’s a lot of pressure on him.**

Ianto’s been staying overnight at the Hub a lot lately. He feels he should probably think more about how he’s shagging his boss—his male boss, at that—but he doesn’t because that’s all it is: a good shag. A really, _really_ good shag. There’s not much talk involved, and it’s not as if they actually go out and do things together.

It’s just Ianto lying awake next to Jack, wondering what it all means.

“This Doctor of yours…” Ianto says quietly. “What do you need him for?”

After a short pause, Jack replies, “I thought you were asleep. Otherwise, I would have suggested we do that again.”

Ianto smiles a little as he says, “Not me, sir. Wide-awake.”

“Good,” Jack says, shifting his position so that he’s closer to Ianto. And before Ianto can fully comprehend what’s happening, their hands and lips are all over each other, and they’re at it again.

Afterwards, when Ianto is thinking about how Jack’s intent was—at least, in part—probably to distract him from his question, and how, if so, he succeeded thoroughly, Jack says, “I’m hoping he’ll be able to fix me.”

Ianto wants to say, “But you’re not broken,” but he can’t because that’s not the kind of thing two people who are only in it for the really, really good shags say to each other. And anyway, Ianto doesn’t even know what Jack is talking about. All he knows is that Jack is relying on a man whose hand he keeps in a jar. So instead of saying anything, Ianto pretends to be asleep and wishes that Jack wasn’t such a secretive bastard.

 

 **iii. Jack left him for Torchwood.**

Months after having suddenly disappeared, Jack returns, handless. Both his are still intact, but the hand in a jar is gone. Nobody ever said anything about it, but Ianto can tell he isn’t the only one who noticed that it vanished when Jack did. Ianto knows Jack had gone to see the Doctor, which is why he suspected that maybe—just maybe—Jack wasn’t ever going to come back. But he did.

‘And he came back for me,’ Ianto thinks. Then he corrects himself. ‘Us.’

Since he came back, the number of things that Ianto needs to talk to Jack about has been growing at a rapid pace. He sort of wants to know more about why Jack left, but mostly he wants to know where Jack went and what happened. He’s been acting a bit differently ever since he came back. There aren’t any big differences, but it’s the little things that Ianto notices: the way Jack looks at him, like he finally _sees_ Ianto, and the way Jack seems to trust them all a little more.

Then Jack asks Ianto out on a date, and Ianto _knows_ something must have happened while Jack was away, but he still has no idea what. Sometimes he even has to remind himself that Jack had been gone no longer than a few months.

What Ianto does know without having to ask is that Jack will see the Doctor again. He doesn’t know why he’s so sure, other than that Jack can’t _not_.

 

 **iv. Jack doesn’t seem to be favouring him lately.**

A few days after Jack’s return, he and Ianto are in bed together. The sun’s just come up, and Ianto is filling out yesterday’s crossword puzzle while Jack tries to distract him. Eventually, he succeeds. Ianto folds up the newspaper and drops it to the floor.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I was having a bit of trouble thinking of a four-letter word for pain in the arse, anyway.” Jack laughs, and Ianto can’t help but think about how long it’s been since he heard Jack laugh. He has a nice laugh.

Then, after a few moments of peaceful quiet, Ianto suddenly blurts, without being able to stop himself, “So, you’re still immortal, then?”

The silence that follows seems to drag on forever, and Ianto is just about to say something resembling, “Nevermind,” when Jack says, “Yes. I thought that the Doctor would be able to fix me, but…”

“But he couldn’t?” It’s a statement, not a question, but Ianto says it like a question anyway.

“No. He couldn’t.”

Ianto takes a minute to process this, then asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Honestly? Because I was hoping I would never have to. I was hoping the Doctor would be able to do more than tell me I’m wrong.” Jack says the last word almost caustically.

“Hmm,” Ianto says noncommittally, but they don’t talk about it anymore, not just then. Maybe Ianto will find out more someday, but he knows when to stop. Besides, the knowledge that Jack won’t ever die doesn’t seem to matter as much as it should. At least, not yet.

 

 **v. He’s not that young.**

Ianto’s been wondering for a while now what the Doctor looks like, but when he finally sees his face, he is not impressed. Gwen is quick to point out that he’s young.

“Not that young,” Ianto notes. Indeed, the Doctor does look about ten years older than him.

But Ianto isn’t stupid. He can figure it out. Jack’s been around a long time—even longer than he’s been working for Torchwood, and that’s already quite awhile (Ianto’s looked him up)—and he'd been looking for the Doctor the whole time.

And then there’s the way Jack talks about the Doctor, with such great respect in his voice. Jack doesn’t respect just anybody. And if Ianto didn’t know any better, he would say that the Doctor has infinite wisdom, just from what Jack says about him. (As it is, Ianto knows there’s at least one very important thing about which the Doctor knows nothing.)

It’s with these facts in mind that Ianto makes his conclusion: the Doctor is immortal as well. Or damn near close to it.

He and Jack are a perfect match, it seems.

Ianto is pretty sure that the only reason why Jack doesn’t travel with the Doctor all the time is because of how the Doctor looks down on him. Still, Jack did come back for him— _them_ —and Ianto knows he would do it again.

But what about when there’s no one to come back to anymore?


End file.
